When iPhones first hit the streets, no-one possibly imagined they could get any better, but they did, and in more ways than we thought. Technology has a habit of forever improving, it's what it does. Yet the question remains, once you've made that all-important upgrade to a newer model, how can you make the most of your old iPhone which now seems as obsolete as a Spectrum 48k.
E-waste is becoming a big, bad and expensive problem, so binning it is not an option. After all, you shelled out all that money for it, so you don't want to just throw it on the scrap-heap. Neither do you want to let it gather dust and biodegrade at the back of some forgotten drawer alongside your old Rubix Cube, Gameboy, and calculator watch. It may seem more dated than a dinosaur, but any smart-phone is a groovy piece of kit that you can still do a hundred and one different things with. Here's a few of them.
Easy Money
It's the most obvious and the most lucrative, so let's start with the most popular option first. If you really don't want your old model hanging around and cramping your style, it's time to sell it and possibly use the money to buy a designer case for your new model. The older the phone gets the less money it makes, so don't delay. Sites like eBay are great places to gauge the market price of any particular model and there's an abundance of places who will make reasonable offers for your old devices such as www.usedphonesuk.com.
The Gift of Giving
In these tough economic times not everyone can afford an iPhone, let alone the latest upgrade, so do your parent, child, partner, or friend a favour and tell them to dump their outdated and ugly old phone because you're going to give them something simply "Appletastic." The reaction you'll receive when you give someone an iPhone will make you feel like Father Christmas himself, and because iPhones can be tailored to suit a host of contracts and functionality, it's win, win all the way.
Plan B
Shiny brand new iPhones have an unfortunate tendency to get stolen, lost, and broken. So what are you going to do if this happens to you? It can take an agonisingly long time for a replacement model to come through on your insurance, that is of course if you have any. So for an unbearable amount of time you might just find yourself being denied of all those amazing iPhone features you foolishly took for granted and have come to rely a little too heavily upon. That's even before you get a taste of the bitter technological humiliation of being forced to use a standard pay as you go phone. However, if you keep your old iPhone as back up for emergencies this need never happen to you. Remember, an old iPhone is still an iPhone.
My Precious
You new iPhone may be able to do a whole range of intergalactic things mankind once never imagined possible, but a lot of iPhone users are very precious when it comes to who handles their latest 'baby' and what environment and situations they use them in. For example to you really want to go for a bike ride or jog and risk using your new iPhone as an iPod when the old one will suffice? And as for letting the kids play on the apps when it's still 'box fresh', forget about it! That's what the old one's for. So remember, if you're particularly fussy about the gadgets in your life, keep your old iPhone for those situations when it's too heartbreaking or risque to use your new one.
Wipe the Tapes
Always remember, whatever you choose to do with your old iPhone, whether it's selling, recycling, passing it on, or keeping it for emergencies. Transfer any personal data onto your new model before wiping the tapes clean on your old one. At the end of the day our iPhones know more about us than we do about them. So treat them well and give them the respect they deserve.
